Minister Kirsty Duncan visits the SFU ROSIE Lab and Autonomy Lab

The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, visited Simon Fraser University today to meet with students and faculty members from the Robots with Social Intelligence and Empathy (ROSIE) Lab and the Autonomy Lab, which are led by computing science professors Angelica Lim and Richard Vaughan, respectively.

The students provided demonstrations of technologies they are developing to allow people to interact with robots in a more intuitive way and help those with limited mobility to carry out daily tasks.

In addition to research project demonstrations, Minister Duncan was also given an overview of some of the ways SFU is helping address the gender gap in technology, including the Women in Computing Science (WiCS) group and Invent the Future, a new two-week artificial intelligence (AI) summer program for Grade 11 girls that is being led by Lim.

Minister Kirsty Duncan tests out a robot that can detect where an individual is pointing.

Minister Kirsty Duncan and guests including SFU president Andrew Petter, wave to a drone that has the ability to detect the hands and faces of individuals. This computer monitor displays what the drone is "seeing".